Projects are where you come as close as you can in academia to doing "real" professional GIS. Projects broaden your learning experience to include:
All of these revolve around good communication skills which we will talk about during the semester as communication well is one of the most challenging and complex skills to acquire.
You'll want to start your project right away and there will be deliverables during the semester (see below). You'll be working in teams of 2 to 3 individuals who will be selected by the instructor based on the defined task and the mix of skills available. You will have some lab time to work together to coordinate your efforts but you will also need to work outside of class hours..
The choice of project is somewhat up to you and somewhat up to others (unlike the real world where you typically have to do the project you are assigned). You will have real clients and your project needs to include spatial analysis.
During the first week we will work out the teams. Some folks are already working on a project as part of an internship or capstone. Others will be assigned based on expertise and interest. It is recommended that you sit together in lab and help each other throughout the semester. It is also recommended that you schedule regular times outside of lab to meet on the project.
The instructor will recommend a manager for the team and it will be there responsibility to make sure that; everyone is working in the same direction, that tasks are clearly defined and assigned, that resources are available to complete the tasks, and that the tasks are completed successfully. If there are problems within a team or with the project manager, you'll escalate those problems to the instructor, just as you would in a professional project. We'll talk about how to work successfully in a team but please try to work together and have some fun on this project!
For those of you coming up with your own project, you can select a project based on your area of interest but it also needs to have a real client and be deployed at the end of the semester.
Note: to work at a client's site that is not part of HSU, we need to work within the Service Learning guidelines and with an approved service learning community organization.
Your final project will have one or more professional products from the following:
You will present your project at the end of the class during the final presentation.
Note: Your clients will provide a review of how you did and this will be considered in your final grade. There will also be a peer review of the project.
As soon as your group is formed, you'll want to create a Google Drive Team folder and us it for your project documentation. This will include your weekly status updates. Please share your Team Drive with me so I can monitor your progress.
During the class you'll be asked to turn in status updates on the progress of your project. The dates for these are documented on the schedule and their description is below. All of these should be emailed to Jim Graham before the start of the first class on the week they are due.
The proposed project and data sources allows me to evaluate if I feel the project is feasible and meets the requirements of the class. It is also an important first step in communicating between your "supervisor" and your team. In less than one page, state the purpose of your project, who the client is, and the key data sources that are required.
In 2 to 3 pages, provide an overview of the project plan including:
If you are going to work with a client that is not HSU, you'll need to make sure they are on the Learning Site Agreement Status List. Please see the instructor for a copy of this list.
In less than one page, describe the results of your data collection. Did you find each of the data sets? Do they meet your requirements? If not, how did this impact your project (i.e. if you can't get the data, change the project)?
After the projects have started, you'll be updating the class on your project progress during lab. These updates are not demonstrations of your work, but instead are opportunities for you to obtain feedback and help. Updates should include:
A big part of any professional product is the review cycle. The rough draft does not have to be perfect. I will review it and give you feedback. You'll want all the content to be in the rough draft but be ready for changes of position, grammar, and color use. I'll also point out anything I feel is missing.
Treat the final presentation as if you are presenting your work to your superiors, research peers, or the public. You'll be graded on your final product and how well you present it. If you have concerns about presenting, please contact me or organizations like Toastmasters.
There are a large number of websites that present dynamic web mapping capabilities with zooming and panning. This is a focus of this class and you are welcome to build or extend one of these web sites. You also need to present some spatial analysis which can appear as layers in the dynamic map or by adding analysis features to the map. documents
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